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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29512458">Prey for Me</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TooGoodToBeBad/pseuds/TooGoodToBeBad'>TooGoodToBeBad</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>After the Post-Timeskip Battle at Gronder Field (Fire Emblem), F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route Spoilers, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 02:53:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,499</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29512458</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TooGoodToBeBad/pseuds/TooGoodToBeBad</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After Gronder Field, Dimitri grapples with loss. Byleth tries to keep him from leaving.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Prey for Me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title is from "Prey for Me" by The Color Morale, since I have once again stolen song lyrics to use as dialogue.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Byleth watched with unblinking eyes as they pulled the sheet over Rodrigue’s body. As in life, as in death — devoted to the prince. And now the prince was nowhere to be found. Dimitri had made himself scarce after his little squabble with Felix where the swordsman struck him with several punches before being hauled off by Sylvain and Ingrid. </p><p>“Morale is already low,” Gilbert muttered beside her, his voice deep and rumbling. “It would not be good for us to lose both the Shield of Faerghus and the crown prince on the same night. Lord Rodrigue was a second father to the prince. Given his already damaged mental state, I shudder to think of what he’s going through right now. Or if he’s going through anything at all.”</p><p>Byleth nodded in agreement. “Dimitri couldn’t have gone far. I’ll go find him.”</p><p>Gilbert gave a heavy, solemn sigh. “Thank you, Professor. I doubt Felix wants anything to do with me, so I shall say my prayers and retire shortly. Once you find the prince, perhaps you should do the same.”</p><p>“Alright. Thank you, Gilbert.”</p><p>The knight bowed deeply and lumbered off towards the center of the camp, and Byleth began to rack her brain, trying to think of where Dimitri could have gone. He shouldn’t have been hard to miss, what with his towering frame and heavy footsteps.</p><p>All the usual haunts of a madman came up empty, from his tent to the weapons wagons (the only two places he hung around, really). The daylight was slowly fading into darkness, and the thought of Dimitri roaming the field at night with fresh ghosts chasing after him was more than a little unsettling.</p><p>Byleth lingered at the edge of camp with only faint firelight for company, watching, waiting. Until the sound of his footsteps broke the stillness of the twilight silence.</p><p>“You.” Dimitri stepped out of the darkness and came into focus. “Why are you wasting your time here?”</p><p>She stared back, unflinching while firelight danced across his hardened features. “I was looking for you.”</p><p>He laughed something cold and dark. “Whatever it is you wish to say, I do not want to hear it. Your time would be better spent looking after Felix.”</p><p>His royal blue eye blinked slowly at her, and his voice softened. “He needs you more than I do.”</p><p>“But I wasn’t waiting for Felix; I was waiting for you.”</p><p>Like a wounded animal, Dimitri stepped back into the comfort of the shadows. “And why would you do that?”</p><p>Byleth pursed her lips and took a cautious step towards him. “Because Felix isn’t the only one hurting tonight.”</p><p>“How…” Dimitri’s voice faltered, and for a moment he sounded so painfully like the boy from the Academy. It hurt her heart to hear him like that.</p><p>“How is he?” he asked.</p><p>“Grieving, which is to be expected. He doesn’t want to see anyone, least of all you. He’ll need some time and space.”</p><p>“A luxury today,” the prince muttered, his voice suddenly dark again, and he strode past her. His boots crushed grass and soil underneath as he walked onwards and away from her.</p><p>“Do you want to see the body?” Byleth turned and called out to him. Even from where she stood, she didn’t miss the way he flinched or the way his shoulders tensed at her words. </p><p>“Could I, Professor? Should I?” He turned to face her, and something that almost looked like vulnerability flickered on his face. </p><p>She folded her arms across her chest and sighed. “You tell me.”</p><hr/><p>“Dead, just like the others,” Dimitri muttered while Byleth pulled the white cloth down from Rodrigue’s face. “I suppose it’s only a matter of time before his ghost haunts me as well.”</p><p>“He doesn’t have to haunt you, Dimitri,” she said beside him.</p><p>“But they always do,” he replied softly and pulled the cloth back over Rodrigue’s pale face. “They always do.”</p><p>A heavy silence fell upon them like a funeral shroud. If Byleth had a heartbeat, she would’ve heard it in the quiet that followed. Instead, only still and stale air clung to them, and all the words she needed to say were lost to her.</p><p>“I see them everywhere. With skin white as winter and eyes as cold as snow. Everyone who’s ever left me.” Dimitri turned on his heel and stepped out the tent. “Rodrigue will be no different.”</p><p>Left with no other choice, Byleth followed him into the dusk.</p><p>“Where are you going?” she said as she fell into step beside him.</p><p>The prince paused, and with a slow and deliberate turn of his head, met her gaze.</p><p>“Away,” he said softly, and all the sharp edges that his voice once held were falling apart, leaving behind cracks that exposed hints of damaged sincerity. It was a tone of voice she hadn’t heard in so long.</p><p>“Professor, I do not belong here.” His words were stumbling out in a hoarse, strained whisper. “I can’t face these people, not after what I’ve done.”</p><p>Her fingers wrapped themselves around the cold steel that encased his wrist. “You can’t leave, Dimitri. These people need you. Your friends need you.”</p><p>Before he could detach himself from her grip, she added in a tiny voice, “I need you.”</p><p>Some strangled sound clawed its way out of his throat before he freed his arm from her hand. “Need — such a funny, twisted word. <em>Need </em>has never stopped anyone from leaving. I needed my father, my mother, Glenn. I need Rodrigue. But I don’t see any of them around.”</p><p>Dimitri turned his face from her and lowered his voice. “Might I ask you a question, Professor?”</p><p>“Of course you may,” Byleth replied.</p><p>“Where do I belong? Where can I go after everyone leaves? Everyone I’ve loved has come and gone.” The sound of dead leaves and twigs being crushed underfoot cut through the quiet as he once again began to walk away. “Even my own shadow leaves me when darkness comes.”</p><p>“You know that’s not true,” she called out, her voice surprisingly steady despite the swirl of emotions that she didn’t quite understand raging in her head. Fear and panic over the possibility of losing the one person they’d all tied their fates to. A tired ache gnawing at battle scars and weary bones. Plain and pure disbelief.</p><p>Dimitri turned around, and even the dark couldn’t mask the quiver in his voice. “You left me, Professor.”</p><p>She took another few hesitant steps forward to close the distance between them. “Call it an unfortunate accident. But I’m here now, aren’t I?”</p><p>“You’ll leave again.”</p><p>Byleth shook her head and gave him a tiny smile. “Not if I can help it.”</p><p>She reached her hand out towards him, only for him to pull away in fear. Or maybe it was disgust. It might have even been a twisted sense of pity.</p><p>“I cannot stay.”</p><p>“Yes, you can. Everyone else has.”</p><p>And under the weight of his words, his voice cracked. “They won’t stay. Not for much longer. How could they? After everything I’ve done to them?”</p><p>Byleth was inching closer now, and he still didn’t move. There was no effort, no attempt to disappear. The distance between them was vanishing, and if she just stretched out her hand—</p><p>“Don’t touch me, Professor. Please.”</p><p>“And why not?”</p><p>“Because I’m a monster,” he said softly. “And you are the farthest thing from one.”</p><p>Her arms fell uselessly to her sides, paralyzed with something dangerously close to longing.</p><p>“You may see yourself as a monster,” she whispered gently. “But it’s not too late to make things right.”</p><p>“That door has long been shut to me.” Dimitri shifted restlessly where he stood and turned his face away. “So I must leave before they do.”</p><p>His footsteps were loud now with the way they crushed the earth underneath, deafeningly distant as he drifted away.</p><p>“Do you ever wonder why they’ve stayed?” Byleth called out, hoping for an answer but bracing for the silence.</p><p>“That is something I need not concern myself with. They, too, will haunt me soon enough.”</p><p>Before he could turn away again, she said, “They stay because they are fighting for something they believe in. <em>Living</em> for something they believe in. Perhaps you should give it a try, Dimitri.”</p><p>The prince faltered at that and stared wordlessly at his own hands. He flexed his own fingers, seemingly memorizing every detail and every bloodstain that marked him from the fingertips to the palms.</p><p>“I do not deserve to,” he finally said. “There is no peace for wicked creatures such as me. As long as the dead know no peace, neither shall I.”</p><p>“Not if you keep living like this,” she replied.</p><p>“That’s where you’re wrong, Professor,” he said with a cold laugh that seemed to cut right through her and chill her straight to her bones. “What I’m doing, it isn’t living.”</p><p>And with that, he turned away and vanished headlong into the shadows.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading! Feedback and comments are appreciated!</p><p>This was challenging to write, because I've never written from Byleth's perspective, and I've never written crazy boy Dimitri. But where would we be if we never did anything new, right? Anyway, I hope they come off halfway decent and the piece doesn't suck.</p><p>I also know there's that whole dialogue at the Monastery where Dimitri finally learns to be a Good Person, so think of this as some sort of prologue to that, I guess.</p><p>I hope you guys liked this!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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